


The Rhythm of the New World

by Elektra Pendragon (elekdragon)



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: AU-Pitfall never happened, Alien Invasion, Alien Sex, Alien/Human Relationships, Bad Touch, Biotechnology, Human Pets, M/M, Other, Slavery, alien masters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 04:30:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4333946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elekdragon/pseuds/Elektra%20Pendragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The masters have no real souls, no feelings of love or connection to their pets. They just use them up, as they use up everything else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rhythm of the New World

Tanner, the crazy bastard, had been the one to tell Chuck the secret to getting out into the new world. Since he'd turned up in the enclosures, the man had been adopted out several times, and always returned in one piece. None of the humans were fat or happy, but Tanner was about as close to it as one could get in this fucked up world. 

Chuck had always ignored him as an insane colluder for his effortless ability to survive, until the day Sasha didn't return from an adoption. She had been the last of his fellow former jaeger pilots that Chuck knew in the enclosures, and she had fought the masters whenever they took an interest in her. Chuck had long since given up reacting at all to the masters during adoption time, instead letting himself list and sway under their eyes. Usually the fighting turned them off from her enclosure. This time, a master found her fighting entrancing, and suddenly, she was adopted out.

Five meals later, and a new human was put in her enclosure, one too young to remember the days before the monsters came. It was a male who meekly followed the slavers and seemed afraid of humans when they approached. Sasha never returned, and Chuck started to wonder if the man's traitorous ramblings were actually worth listening to.

Tanner had been happy to have someone to talk to, and he spilled his secrets every time Chuck came close during the mingling times. 

He said it was easy service, far out of the reach of the slavers or those masters who wanted to destroy what remained of the human race. He was frequently brought into the dwellings of more sedate masters, and was well-kept until the novelty of owning a human wore off. 

The masters were ageless, supposedly, but Tanner said he could tell when a master had gone beyond a certain age of reckless cruelty. Those older masters only wanted an ornament--something strange to show off--or to enjoy the presence of such a lesser, harmless thing at its call. He taught Chuck his secrets, as he'd teach any human desperate enough to reach out to him.

There were no other humans in the masters' dwellings, no competition for the meals or blue-free water. Everything was meant for a single pet. All one had to do to survive was to simply exist for the master's pleasure, and eventually one would be returned.

The masters had no real souls, no feelings of love or connection to their pets. They just used them up, as they used up everything else. But if you kept them happy, they'd see to it that you survived a little longer, a little easier.

To Chuck, it was better than waiting to see what other more cruel masters would take an interest in a scruffy human who could still remember what it felt like to tear a kaiju limb from limb. It was a chance to see the new world, and to learn something--anything--to help his people. There had to be a resistance, a network of some type, a way that humans were planning to take their world back. There had to be some way that the human race could survive this occupation.

An odd clicking started up, vibrating through the walls, and the cadence told Chuck that it was adoption time. He stood, as did most everyone else, at the end of his enclosure. Rather than list and hide, he pressed himself to the glass to make the best display of flesh he could. He tried to think of puppies, or kittens, little things that entranced ownership. He wouldn't let himself think of any specific creature. He just let the vague images float in his head, superimpose over his body as he waited for the masters to arrive.

In other enclosures, humans were sobbing. Some stood defiant, spitting and hissing against the glass. Some leaned heavily against the walls, nearly dead from blue poisoning, barely able to get out of bed. But Chuck was determined. He had to get out of here. He had to know if there was any hope outside the enclosures.

Eerie blue light crackled in the ceiling, gaining strength as time dragged on. Then a shadow grew over the enclosures moments before a monster stepped into view. 

It was indescribable. Large and utterly inhuman. They had referred to the soldiers as "kaiju," but the humans had no name for these things except "masters." They rebuilt the worlds they conquered, they created the kaiju for new battles, and now, they owned every living thing on the planet once called Earth. 

The masters tended to look alike, but Tanner had given him some tips. Their pigmentation differed slightly, patterns on layers of rough hide and scales that marked one master different from another. "It's not until you finally make it out of the enclosures and into the new world that you can see just how different the masters look," Tanner had promised. 

The first masters to come into the human space were the slavers, the ones who kept the humans in their enclosures and brought them to the mingling places. They could be known by the scarring around the eyes of their bare faces. Tanner said you had to wait for them to frill before you got to see it, which they only did around a superior master. These slavers were all frilled. 

A tall master, with tracks of spots peeking out among the ridges of its head crest, came next. It stood tall, inspecting the merchandise. These ones were dangerous, like the one that took Sasha. They wanted the fighters, and they wanted to BREAK them. Chuck stayed back, dropping his gaze to the floor and ignoring the creature. 

An immense master approached with long appendages that pushed upon the soft floor to help propel it forward--this was an old one. Over four meters tall. A shaper, perhaps, because it frilled widely to allow itself a clear view of Chuck's body. There were no scars, no spots. He felt tiny standing before this being, delicate. He wanted to snarl, to throw insults and scream at the creature, but that was not the way to survive this new world. 

Puppies. Puppies and kittens. 

Chuck focused, letting his limbs go soft, his head ducking down to expose the vast smooth planes of skin that so fascinated the masters. He had only a few scars, places where the drive suit had burned or pinched. Tanner had told him that they liked spots, and he had freckles all over his shoulders from a youth spent outdoors--before the masters came. 

The large master leaned closer, an appendage unfurling to touch the glass. Shyly, but with telegraphed curiosity, Chuck stretched out his own hand. He petted the glass, signaled that he wanted to touch the master even as his skin crawled at the thought. Goose flesh rose on his arms, and his neck tingled as the master petted back across the glass. Its head took up almost all the space in front of his enclosure, the softly glowing blue light twisting in its alien features. He wanted nothing more than to be in a jaeger, stomping the wretched life out of this twisted bug, but he pushed down those feelings, displayed himself, rubbed against the glass with his full body to show just how docile, how perfect, a pet he could be. 

The clicking changed tone, telling him something he couldn't understand. The far side of his enclosure split open like a wound, and a master clicked roughly at him. This was something he understood, the stern "follow now" they used to herd the humans. 

Chuck took a moment to look at the old master at his window. The creature clicked soundlessly against the glass, but it dipped its head in a gesture that might have been a nod. 

Swallowing his disgust, Chuck stepped away and followed the slaver out of his enclosure. He had either just won himself the closest thing he'll ever have to freedom, or he'd doomed himself to a half-life as a test subject. Either way, it had to be better than here. 

**********

Humans were given no clothes or blankets. They had no belongings. Chuck took nothing with him as he followed the master out of the human spaces and into a cavern of sorts. The gravity was strange in this space, some masters floating like flowers in water as they worked on the walls, sculpting living matter like clay far out of his seeing. He had to run to keep up with the master, despite its sedate pace. It approached another master, this one slightly smaller than itself. They conversed in their clicking language, completely incomprehensible to Chuck. 

The smaller one turned to him, dipping the longest claw of its lowest limb into a vat of some substance. It reached out, and it took all of Chuck's strength to keep from dodging away. The master painted the substance around his throat, then quickly wrapped a strand of some kind into the sticky mess around his neck. 

Instantly, it warmed up, growing hard and tight. The suddenness of it made it feel like his head was going to be popped off like a weed. Chuck brought his hands to his neck, digging in his nails, but the substance was already cooling to skin-temperature. It was hard, porous. It didn't sit too tight, but it was enough that he knew he'd always feel it. Tanner had called it the bone collar, because of the way it felt like old bone beneath his fingers. It was one way--a benign way--the masters marked out their pets.

The slaver called out the "follow now" noise, and Chuck stumbled after it. The wall portal opened, and Chuck was suddenly in the presence of the immense master who had chosen him. It filled the space with its body. The slaver frilled, revealing its scarred face to the higher level master. They conversed in clipped chirrups, until the great master reached towards Chuck with a single appendage. 

A living vine-like thing snaked out of its claws, seeming to stretch and grow as it reached across the space between them. It looked like a leafless plant stalk, only it was blue-grey, like the fleshy walls. Chuck held himself very still, letting it stretch and crawl in the air towards him. It wrapped around the bone collar, slithering against his skin like a worm as it attached to the pitted surface, then it seemed to go still, dormant. 

The great master curled its claws inward, withdrawing its appendage close to its body. The vine thing stretched, and Chuck felt the pull on his neck. He stepped forward to keep the collar from digging into his skin. The master clicked, dipping its head, before it turned away. 

Chuck didn't bother looking back at the slaver as the master led him out of the enclosure. Blinking his eyes, he got his first glimpse of the new world at the end of a leash. At first it was just a warm burst of orange light. The sun had a hazy quality to it. The air was thick like smog, and tasted acidic. 

The city--if that's where he was--was changed beyond all comprehension. There was nothing left that was familiar, nothing to tell him if he were in Hong Kong or Sydney or fucking Anchorage. There were structures taller than the tallest of buildings of the old Earth, things that reached beyond the skies. They moved, shifted, some of them swooping down in reaction to the wind or maybe a silent command. In one, it appeared that a kaiju was half-melted into it, creating a twisted mountain of moaning flesh that crawled with masters like maggots on a corpse. 

The masters didn't just conquer Earth, they had remade it in their own image. They were still remaking it. Masters were everywhere, beings of all shapes and sizes filling the space with noise and smells. There were no humans anywhere that Chuck could see. 

The air was humid and hot against his bare skin, covering him with a sheen of sweat. His muscles shivered, revulsion clawing at his throat as he breathed in the acid stink of so many masters. The human enclosures were kept at conditions more friendly to humans, but out here, the world belonged to the masters. Only their comfort mattered. 

Chuck stopped looking around at the changes. His mind ached from the dizzying heights and movement in every facade, the complete changes the world had undergone in a few short years. He kept his eyes focused on his feet, following the trailing appendage of his new master as they navigated the soupy byways to the new dwelling. 

The soft substrate that served as the ground felt warm and alive under his bare toes. There was a throbbing quality to it, but it was unclear if it was life or just the reverberations of other masters locomoting across the ground. Mossy-like mounds burst out of the surface in odd, nonsensical patches. 

Clicks and whirs passed over his head, some coming from his master, some from other beings who passed by. He caught their shapes in the corners of his eyes, but he couldn't bring himself to look directly at them anymore. Chuck felt more on display here than he had in his enclosure, like a piece of art being delivered to a museum. 

The living bone collar around his throat got heavier and heavier as they moved, the long vine connecting him to his master getting thinner as his own steps slowed. Life seemed to just drain out of his body. He wasn't as built as he'd once been, but he had tried to stay strong during his imprisonment. It was this air, the ground--something sapped his strength and made his veins burn. 

The vine grew thinner, and his master tugged, clicking deeply at him. Chuck focused on his toes, sinking them into the substrate to throw himself forward into the next step, but he couldn't call up enough strength to keep up the fast pace. He stumbled, the bone collar digging harshly into his skin as he fell. 

His master loomed over Chuck as he coughed and choked, kneeling on the ground. This was it. He'd failed completely. He had only made it a short distance from the enclosure and into the new world, and he had already displeased his master. Now his master would see to his death. He'd learned nothing, found nothing, but despair. 

His master clicked, then hissed a high-pitched sigh. Silky-smooth appendages reached out to him, gathering him close to the warmth of the master's body. He expected to be crushed. Instead, he was carried, his master keeping a stream of hisses as they moved quickly. The acid smell was getting stronger, making it hard to breathe. Chuck gave into the impulse and allowed himself to go limp as his brain shut down. He'd failed. They had all failed. 

*********

When he woke up, the light was dim and blue-ish against his eyelids, like his enclosure. Occasional flares of color sparked across his vision when he cracked his eyes open just a little. Chuck wasn't sure if it was the space around him that made such lights, or if he was hallucinating. He was wrapped in warm, smooth silk, an organic cradle far more comfortable than the bed the masters provided in the enclosure. Chuck closed his eyes, waiting for the dizzying lights to disappear. 

A sound, not quite a clicking but not a whir or hiss, whistled around him. It continued on for a while, until Chuck, annoyed, opened his eyes fully and pushed aside the blankets smothering him. 

The blankets refused to move at his touch, and instead gripped him closer. For a brief moment his ribs ached, and he truly feared being crushed, then the touch relaxed. Chuck struggled limply, turning his head until he was captured by the opal gaze of a master.

/His/ master now. At least until it tired of him. 

He was cradled in his master's wing, swaddled in thin, soft flesh and held close to its body. It had brought its face close to him, examining the squirming human enfolded in its giant limb. Its long face was easily the size of his torso, and it moved closer. The noise rose in volume, and a gust of air trembled over Chuck's skin. It was warm, spicy, his master's breath escaping its mouth-like parts. 

The noise was more like the coo of a bird, a questing noise that was settling in a strange way. His master frilled, examining Chuck with a secondary eye. The light blue glow engulfed him, filled him with a stab of terror before the noise curled around him again, warm and soothing. 

The world shifted, and suddenly he was sliding, falling, being settled on his feet on the soft ground. He sank slightly into the surface, wobbling. His master presented a single long claw from a lower limb, standing it against Chuck's chest like a pillar, steadying him. He leaned against the offered claw, gripping the rough cuticle with both hands as he tried to find his balance. His fingers could just about meet around the thickest part. It was as long as Chuck's head, and his master's forelimb was nearly the length of his body. 

Chuck's head was spinning, his heart beating quickly in his chest. He looked around with shaky jerks, noticing that this space was utterly unlike his enclosure. This dwelling was a tall, bright space, with nodes of spikes directing electrical current around the room like rainbow-colored lightning. The air felt thick, but not the sour-acid he had felt outside. It was warm, but not quite as humid. 

His master retracted its wings, letting them relax and fold around its appendages like a thick layer of muscle. It gave the master a rounder look, the angles of its limbs less severe. 

The odd cooing finally tapered off, and his master clicked in a more normal tone. It wasn't any pattern he knew, nothing that the slavers ever said to a human. 

His master repeated the clicks slowly, over and over, one oddly misshaped appendage floating between them with the rhythm of the noise. It was a strange limb, lacking the trademark claws that usually marked the upper appendages, but it was just as long as the rest of them. The wing covered the end joints like a soft glove. Perhaps it had been injured at some point in its long life.

His master was trying to tell him something, that much he could tell. For a moment, Chuck was annoyed that it seemed to think he should know their alien language. It wasn't like they had taught the humans anything. Chuck had picked up certain phrases that the slavers had made obvious to the humans, like "follow now" or "stop doing that." His master continued, the unblinking eyes staring as it intoned its message. 

"I don't--" Chuck coughed, shaking his head. Tanner had said the masters didn't understand human speech, and they didn't like to hear it. It was... offensive, in some way. Chuck breathed in, clicking his tongue rapidly against the roof of his mouth in a rough approximation of the submissive noise that seemed to please the slavers. 

His master's frill twitched, its mouthparts pulling back. It clicked the same rhythm again, slowly, emphasizing the tones and directions of the noise as it gestured. The meaning of the sound was completely lost, but somehow Chuck knew that the master wanted him to speak it back to him.

Chuck tried to copy the noise, clucking his tongue, smacking his lips. He sucked air through his teeth on what sounded like a backwards click that seemed to punctuate the phrase. His master dipped its head, then began again. This time, when Chuck got to the ending noise, his master shifted its claw in Chuck's grasp, pressing it into his stomach so he released his breath suddenly in an explosive chirp. The unexpected pressure hurt, his master's strength immeasurable. 

The sound seemed to please his master, as it dipped its head several times and cooed. 

Chuck frowned, rubbing his stomach with a hand. He wanted to complain, wanted to yell at the fucker for pushing him, but he kept his tongue for now. He was in its dwelling, at its mercy, and it had brought him home as a pet. He would need to keep playing his part if he wished to survive long enough to return, to see Tanner and the others again and tell them what he had learned.

When his master gestured to itself and repeated the rhythm slowly, Chuck followed. On the last click, his master moved as though to touch him again, and Chuck choked out the last sound in a cough as he avoided the touch. The floor was softly uneven, more like poxy skin over gel, and he wobbled on his feet again as he twisted away from the claw. His master allowed him this movement, and pulled its claw back to use that appendage to gesture between them. 

This time, Chuck clicked out the rhythm, faster than he had before, coughing at the end. He stood tall, proud, his head no longer swimming as he stared up at his master. 

It was hard to tell its moods, its emotions--if it had any--but it chittered pleasantly, dipping its head as its mouthparts relaxed. It seemed pleased. Chuck repeated the rhythm, committing the taste and feel of it to memory so he could perform this little trick for his master in the future. 

Its lower limbs split at the joint, the pincher-like feet opening to allow his master to lower itself closer. Its great face swooped down, its mouthparts clicking in that odd cooing again. Chuck held still, meeting those alien eyes as he repeated the rhythm once more. 

His master swayed close, its lower limbs trembling as its appendages folded in on themselves, out of the way. Its mouthparts, easily larger than his hands, clicked and swayed, tasting very close to the skin of his shoulder. Chuck held still but had to close his eyes, unable to maintain contact with the sparkling abyss of his master's gaze. 

The mouthparts touched the soft flesh of his neck, just above the bone collar. It was holding Chuck in what could quickly become a killing grip. The sharp flesh was warm, almost wet in some odd way he couldn't define. It wasn't like slobber, just... living tissue, incredibly strong, incredibly deadly, wrapping around his spine. Warm breath, spicy air, and the mouthparts trembled against his skin, like his master was tasting him. Nibbling him.

The mouthparts moved, tracing carefully over his collar and down his shoulder. The tender flesh between the moveable parts moved back up to nudge against his jaw, pushing into him. Chuck lifted his head, baring his throat. His master nudged against him again, the flesh vibrating with a deep-chest vocalization. It was a noise he hadn't heard from a master before, but it felt familiar, like his master was... purring. 

Puppies and kittens.

Chuck let his thoughts shift, focusing on the mental image of a pet--a great dog, showing its dominance. If this is what it wanted, then he could do nothing but let it. He wanted to live. He wanted to return to the others and tell them what he learned. He wanted to please his master. 

Chuck clicked the submissive noise the slavers enjoyed, stretching out as he pressed into the tender touch of his master's mouth. The mandibles trembled, pinching but not enough to break the skin. He was nudged again, and this time, Chuck boldly brought up one hand. He reached up, tracing the curving scythe of the nearest mouthpart until he reached the flesh revealed by his master's frill. It too was soft, warm, not-quite-skin/not-quite-bone. 

Slowly, he drew his hand over the bumps of his master's face, caressing the great beast as though it were the pet.

The vibration trembled, increased. It was joined by a subtler tone of its mouthparts moving against the bone collar. Something touched his stomach, and Chuck bit down a gasp as his eyes flew open to look. He was trapped within the cage of its claws. Its long appendage was bent around his body, its collection of joints and claws wrapped around him to hold him close. They curled inward, prodding lightly at his belly, dancing over his skin. The things looked deadly sharp at the narrow tips, but they moved with small, controlled twitches that felt more like a caress than an attack. He couldn't move away. 

He was in the grip of a great beast, and it was purring under his touch. 

He felt light headed again, dizzy, his skin suddenly too hot and tight. God, Tanner never told him about this, about what masters do other than stare and show off their humans. He wasn't ready. He didn't want to die.

He thought of the kaiju, crushing humans where they could find them. He thought of cats playing with a toy before tearing it to pieces. He thought about Striker Eureka, his dad, his mum. 

The killing blow didn't come. Instead, the long claws continued their dance over his stomach, the vibrating noise shifting through his whole body, moving from his skeleton outwards to his skin. It was an odd sensation, like a massage from the inside out. He was frozen, his hand unmoving on its tender face as his master nudged into him. 

His mind was filled with terror, but his body was responding in ways he couldn't control, nor understand. He suddenly knew he wasn't going to die. Not yet.

Soft caresses. Spicy breath against his neck, and scratching pressure. Pressure, right THERE. Pleasure.

His cock thickened. The claws danced lower. 

Humiliation cut through the utter terror that had frozen his brain. He had to focus. Chuck breathed deeply, trying to calm his heartbeat as much as he could while he shakily rubbed his hand against his master's face, moving in the same rhythm as its own fingers moved on him. Once he felt like he wouldn't fall apart, he clicked his tongue, copying the phrase that it had worked so hard to teach him, coughing the noise at the end. 

His master released his neck from its mouth, withdrew its claws, but it didn't pull away completely. It lowered itself more, moving its great head against Chuck's hand, his body. He twisted to see the blue-opal light of its eyes studying him, staring at him closer than they could have been back at the enclosure. Chuck couldn't see anything in there but a faint reflection of his own face, pale and multi-colored and strange. There was no recognition in those eyes, no sign of pain or pleasure, nothing but an echo of himself.

His master cooed, the vibration carrying over his chest and stomach, and Chuck sobbed at the sensation of that sharp curve of a mouthpart just grazing his dick. His master nudged into his hand one more time before it finally pulled away.

Chuck swayed on his feet, his body trembling as his master pulled back its appendage. It contracted its lower limbs, raising itself back up into the air so that it towered over Chuck. It wasn't anywhere near the size of the soldiers it built, but it was still so much bigger than him. 

It cooed one more time, chittered a quick phrase, and then propelled itself away. The floor faintly vibrated with the weight of its movement. 

Part of the wall sparked, the rainbow-lightning withdrawing from the spines in front of his master. The fleshy substance contracted, like a bare muscle being prodded, before it split open into a new space. This part of the dwelling Chuck couldn't see--his master's immense body blocked the way as it propelled through the portal, its trailing limb flicking minutely at the space as the wall closed behind it. The lightning arced and reconnected, filling the walls with bright bands of energy. 

He was left alone, hard and afraid, in a strange dwelling, and he had no idea what to do next. He squatted down, unwilling to sit bare-bum onto the odd substrate, and ran his hands over his neck and face and chest. He couldn't feel any blood, or saliva, or any marks at all. His collar felt tight, but it was undamaged. He couldn't bring himself to touch lower, to acknowledge his humiliating reaction to his master's handling. 

At last, he wrapped his arms around his head, curling over his heels as he trembled. He focused inward, searching for the will to survive that had gotten him this far. 

The will to accept this possible new fate.

**Author's Note:**

> This came out of a weird dream I had where kaiju were these tiny little creatures in boxes that humans kept as pets. I switched it around a bit and played with the pet idea.


End file.
